Betsy Cooper is the founding Director of the Aspen Policy Academy, which equips experts and community leaders with the resources they need to speak up, be heard, and have an impact. A cybersecurity expert, Dr. Cooper joined the Aspen Institute after serving as the Executive Director of the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, Berkeley.
Previously, Dr. Cooper served in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an attorney advisor to the Deputy General Counsel and as a policy counselor in the Office of Policy. She worked for over a decade in homeland security consulting, managing projects for Atlantic Philanthropies in Dublin, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in London, and the World Bank, and other organizations.
Dr. Cooper completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (where she currently is a nonresident affiliate), as well as a Yale Public Interest Fellowship. Dr. Cooper has written more than twenty manuscripts and articles on U.S. and European homeland security policy. She is also a Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group and clerked for Judge William Fletcher on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dr. Cooper earned a J.D. from Yale University, a D.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University, an M.Sc. in Forced Migration from Oxford University, and a B.A. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She speaks advanced French and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
